Voice applications are becoming increasingly popular and may be used in diverse applications such as computer support applications, interactive menu systems, information processing systems, such airline timetable, etc.
In order to create a voice application, it is necessary to create content for the voice application and to develop code which uses the content to generate a voice-user interface.
In order to ensure that the voice-user interface is able to interact with a caller and to engage in a question-and-answer style interaction that the caller perceives as a conversation with a human, the content and the code for the voice application has to be carefully thought out and should be able to cater for every possible eventuality during the interaction.
Thus, situations where the caller provides no input, or provides a meaningless response to choices that were presented to the caller, etc. have to be dealt with appropriately.
On account of the foregoing, it will be appreciated that the creation of a robust voice application, i.e., one that is capable of interacting with a user so that the user perceives the interaction as a conversation with a human, is a complex task that requires the question-and-answer style interaction to be carefully scripted and the code to be rigorous enough to ensure that the voice application is capable of handling all possible input from the caller.
Thus, a considerable amount of time and resources are required to create such robust voice applications. Consequently, a tool that facilitates the creation of robust voice applications is required, particularly where large bodies of knowledge are required to be made accessible to callers through the voice application.